The return of the giant cutthroat trout: Anglers and conservationists celebrate as Nevada's state fish returns to ancient spawning ground

For the first time since it was declared extinct in the 1940s, a giant cutthroat trout native to northwest Nevada’s Pyramid Lake has spawned naturally this year in its historic home.
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In the early 1900s, the lake produced the world-record cutthroat trout: 41 pounds. But due to decades of industrialization, the Pyramid Lake strain of Lahontan cutthroat trout — thought to be the largest on earth — gradually disappeared. In 1975, a fish biologist discovered surviving specimens in a mountain creek on the Utah border, and for the past four decades, biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have worked to bring the trout back to Pyramid Lake and to the Truckee River, where they once spawned.
“People didn’t realize what they were losing,” said John Barnes, a biologist for the conservation group Trout Unlimited.
“We live in a time when people are always talking about ‘Do you remember how good it was? Do you remember how great this place used to be?’ ” said fisherman and guide Ernie Gulley. “We can flip that around for Pyramid Lake and say, ‘The best is yet to come.’ ”